"Yeh don' know what yeh are?....Harry - yer a wizard."
--- Hagrid, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 4
Harry Potter is the boy who lived, yet he didn't have much of a life sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs in horrid aunt and uncle's home. In fact, Harry's future is pretty hopeless - no chance for love, no chance for adventure, no chance for much of anything. He's practically enslaved and stuck in a mundane, abusive life. Then one day a letter changes his life. One day Harry, who knows no one in the world besides his awful family, receives an invitation to a new life and a new identity. That invitation comes in the form of a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and with the acceptance of that letter, Harry's eyes are opened to a new world beyond his comprehension and a destiny he never could have imagined. Harry is no longer Harry Potter, forgotten and unloved child. He is Harry Potter, a wizard with a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11 reference anyone?). Harry is now a member of a world that is magically set apart. The wizarding world becomes his true home yet he still lives in the Muggle world.
What a telling reminder to us that we are not true citizens of this world. Once we accept Christ, we are called out of our mundane, hopeless lives into a citizenship in Heaven and called with a purpose to fulfill our destinies He has planned for us. God invites us to step out of our cupboards under the stairs and join him in a life more wonderful than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). He'll stop at nothing to find his way into our hearts and show us a glimpse of who we can be in Him...just as no boarded up mail slot prevents those letters from finding Harry. He always knows just where to find us, and He meets us right where we are whether it's in a mundane dead-end existence at 4 Privet Drive or in the middle of a dark storm in a tiny shack by the sea with the waters rising. Still, those letters find Harry, and in the end, all he has to do to begin his new life is accept what Hagrid tells him - that he's a wizard. All we have to do to begin our new lives in Christ is accept that we are His bought at a price and devote ourselves to following Him. That's only the beginning of the journey, as Harry soon discovers too, but it's the first step in the transition from the boy who lived to the boy who really lives.
What a telling reminder to us that we are not true citizens of this world. Once we accept Christ, we are called out of our mundane, hopeless lives into a citizenship in Heaven and called with a purpose to fulfill our destinies He has planned for us. God invites us to step out of our cupboards under the stairs and join him in a life more wonderful than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). He'll stop at nothing to find his way into our hearts and show us a glimpse of who we can be in Him...just as no boarded up mail slot prevents those letters from finding Harry. He always knows just where to find us, and He meets us right where we are whether it's in a mundane dead-end existence at 4 Privet Drive or in the middle of a dark storm in a tiny shack by the sea with the waters rising. Still, those letters find Harry, and in the end, all he has to do to begin his new life is accept what Hagrid tells him - that he's a wizard. All we have to do to begin our new lives in Christ is accept that we are His bought at a price and devote ourselves to following Him. That's only the beginning of the journey, as Harry soon discovers too, but it's the first step in the transition from the boy who lived to the boy who really lives.
